May 15, 2025 • 62 mins
MarcusB814 and Dr. Gameology dive deep into the emotional highs of conquering difficult games, specifically the journey to becoming Elden Lord after two years. They explore how different game styles create unique psychological experiences and why certain victories feel so meaningful.
• MarcusB814 shares his emotional reaction to finally beating Elden Ring after two years
• The psychological difference between MMO challenges versus single-player games
• Why the moment before victory can feel more powerful than the victory itself
• Discussion of Final Fantasy XIV's steep learning curve and content structure
• Frustrations with open-world game design in Breath of the Wild
• How Expedition 33 is revolutionizing turn-based combat
• The importance of finding games that connect with your personal play style
• Dr. Gameology introduces his new D20 mental health topics stream feature
Check out Dr. Gameology's book "The Gamer's Journey" available at drgameology.com to learn more about the hero's journey in gaming.
If you would like to support the show and help us unlock additional possibilities for future episodes and projects, this can now be done through Patreon!
You can watch us play games LIVE and join our communities to get more connection from every episode:
- DrGameology on Twitch - Continue the Journey LIVE in 2025!!
- MarcusB814 on YouTube - BOOMBA
Subscribe on YouTube for more content on the Psychology of Gaming or Follow on Twitch to catch the Live Streams!
For more info, check out DrGameology.com!
More Links Here!
Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Gaming Persona Podcast.
I'm MarcusB814.
I'm joined by my esteemed bestfriend, Dr Gameology, and we're
here to talk about video gamesand sidebars.
Why?
Because that's what I do.
I'm here for the sidebar, he'shere to drop psychology on you,
and this is our show right now.
(00:21):
It's the first time the airconditioner's been on all year
and it's chilly, so I put on alight hoodie.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
That sounds so nice.
It's always running the ACwhere I am.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, but in the winter when you're like running
the AC and it's negative sixoutside at my house.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's May 8th, marcus.
Yeah, we just had Revenge ofthe Fifth, and May the Fourth be
with you, I know.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It was a great day, hmm.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I got called out by someone in my community because
I streamed Expedition 33 on Maythe 4th and I just was very
honest in my response.
I didn't even realize it wasMay the 4th, because it has been
so long since Star Wars gave meany joy.
Marcus, I woke up and had noidea.
(01:21):
Have you watched Andor?
No, had no idea.
Have you watched?
And?
Or?
No, none of it ever.
I watched season one.
It took me four attempts ofwatching the first episode
before I finally was able topush through and watch the whole
season.
Okay, it's hard.
The force is absent and I needthe force, marcus.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, I watched episode one of season two.
I haven't even watched it yet,but the first season was good.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, I did like it, but it was hard to get into for
me.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm working on my wiggle why?
I don't know, it warms me up,it's chilly.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Oh right, you got to keep your blood flowing so you
don't freeze over and die.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Well, I'm not going to freeze over and die.
I should turn off Discord.
So it's beeping.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Beep, beep, beep.
Marcus is too social.
This is what video games do toextroverts it just gives them an
endless supply of people tochit-chat with over nothing.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well no, it's just yeah anyway.
Well, let's get into this.
So where do I even start?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, if I was your parent, Marcus, I would accuse
you right now of all your fakefriends distracting you from
being a responsible adult.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Tomorrow's my last day at my job.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Oh, you quitter, Congrats.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, and then Monday I start everybody's like oh,
you're not taking a week off.
I'm like I went just went onvacation, like three weeks ago,
so I don't need another week off.
And I feel like if you're goingsomewhere on vacation, it's
worth it to like take the timeoff, but if you're not going
vacation, it's worth it to takethe time off, but if you're not
going anywhere it's kind of awaste to take a whole week off,
(03:09):
because by the middle of theweek you're bored, mm-hmm, you
know.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, if work is a significant part of your
identity and you don't have work, then you have no identity.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, no, it's not.
I'm just saying I can only justbe sitting at home doing
nothing for so long before I'mbored, you know.
I take a day off and, okay, Irelax for a little while, I
chill, I make a nice likebreakfast or lunch or whatever,
and I'm like all right, what amI going to do?
And then I play video games fora couple hours.
But then it's like eh, and I'mlike all right, what am I going
to do?
And then I play video games fora couple hours, but then it's
(03:45):
like eh, I got to go outside, Igot to go do something.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Got to go touch grass , Marcus.
I touch grass every day.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
My kid beats the living shit out of me in my yard
every single day because hethinks he's the WWE champion,
but now that he has the belt hewon't put it up.
He says our matches there's anon-title match Because he
doesn't want to lose it.
Well, what else?
All right.
So something wild happened tome today Not today, this week I
(04:17):
beat Elden Ring, so I canhappily say I'm Elden Lord.
It was a really special moment.
I'm going to talk about this alot today because it took me
literally.
So two years ago, at PAX East2023, I was there and we were
(04:39):
myself and A-Trax were waitingto play this game.
It was called like Crime City.
The developer was there, we hadan appointment, we were going
to be playing the gate, like wehad a free, like a guided demo
and like talk about the game,set up the recorder, the whole
nine and then, after everything,I had never hit the record
button.
(04:59):
So that was a fail.
Oh, it was awful.
I felt like terrible, butanyway.
So we were standing there andthere was this like I'm gonna
say like a 32 inch or 40 inch tvwith a controller, xbox, and it
had elden ring and I was like,why not never played it.
So I played it and it's.
(05:19):
There was a guy just standingthere and there was a.
It was by a grace, and I didn'teven know what it was.
So I just started running.
I don't remember the weapon Ihad.
It was some kind of sword.
And there was a guy juststanding there and there was a
it was by a grace and I didn'teven know what it was.
So I just started running.
I don't remember the weapon Ihad, it was some kind of sword,
and there was a giant there andI was like no problem, and
there's a.
There's a YouTube short of medoing it.
And it's absolutely my faultwhy I got demolished right,
(05:42):
absolutely my fault why I gotdemolished and fault why I got
demolished right, absolutely myfault why I got demolished.
And I looked at I was just likethis is not fair.
This is not fair and it's, itwas a video.
So it was two years ago and twoyears later, through all of my
ups and downs of playing thegame, quitting the game, rage,
(06:02):
quitting the game, coming backto the game, falling in love
with the game to beat the gameand what I mean by that is
beating the final bosses, causeit's kind of two for one Radagon
and the Elden beast and gettingthe final ending.
It was really an emotionaljourney for me.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
There's a video of it and I need to clip.
I need to like put the video inand just clip the final poll
and like the ending of me and myemotions, because I want to
kind of capture that.
But my point is it was twoyears of, I'm going to say,
blood, sweat and tears, but itwasn't really anything like that
(06:47):
.
It was two years of grindingthrough and realizing how good
the game is.
To get to that point I legitwas shaking.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, it was actually really cool to watch the video
when you shared it with me,marcus.
Yeah, it was actually reallycool to watch the video when you
shared it with me, marcus,because you demonstrated a lot
of the things that I'm alwaystalking about, about what games
can do that make them matter inour lives.
So for me, I was like anemotional vampire watching that
video, like I was just feedingoff of that energy and feeling
(07:21):
it with you.
Like I was just feeding off ofthat energy and feeling it with
you, because I remember thefirst time I won the game too,
and I wasn't recording it oranything, I was just playing
alone on my computer.
And I remember what it feltlike to realize.
(07:44):
So it's not when you see theboss go down.
That is one of the mostpowerful emotions that I can
even describe, marcus.
It's the moment when yourealize that you've got the hit
and if you push that button it'sover right.
Like so it's not the, it'srealizing that if you just do it
(08:07):
right, one more split second ofyour life.
That's what is intoxicating tome.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, I, I agree with you and I remember it took me a
week of fighting Radagon andlike learning it and like
realizing I can do it and allthese things.
I feel like I'm that that videoof me winning is going to end
(08:39):
up in one of your like classesor seminars someday classes or
seminars someday.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The ironic thing, marcus, is the YouTube video
that I'm stalled on that I wishI was done with is the same
exact thing, but it's mefighting Sephiroth on dynamic
difficulty in Final Fantasy VIIRebirth.
It's the exact same concept andso the difference is your video
is your live reaction.
The video I'm working on ismore of a analysis of how this
(09:13):
works and why it happens, so thewebcam part is me analyzing it,
not live.
Sure, you know, for peoplelistening to the podcast,
hopefully in the next week ortwo that video will be out on
youtube.
But the thing about tough bossfights and about ending stories
that you've been working on fora long time is you really do
(09:35):
have an investment in achievingsomething and the doubt also of
whether you ever will and when.
When you break through.
That's such a powerfulachievement-based feeling.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, so I agree with you, and I had no idea what I
was going to do.
I had no idea how I was goingto feel.
I had no idea what it was goingto look like when I did it.
But the things that happened tome because of Elden Ring is it
(10:09):
got me to start playing EldenRing on like a committed basis.
It got me to start makingcontent again.
You know, I'm not streaming ona regular schedule.
I just turn on the YouTube I'mnot on Twitch, I'm not on any of
that and then I make someshorts and I'm not streaming on
a regular schedule.
I just turn on the YouTube I'mnot on Twitch, I'm not on any of
that and then I make someshorts and I'm having a lot of
(10:29):
fun doing it.
And what I realized is I'm stillreally bad at the game.
Yeah, and I don't care how badI am, because I beat it Right
and it feels good to do it,because I worked at it for two
(10:53):
years.
It was like a two yearculmination of emotion popping
out and you know a tracks shoutout to a tracks.
You know he was there, standingright there recording me two
years ago.
He was there when they him,nick Ryu, were in our Discord
telling me you gotta roll better, just try rolling.
(11:13):
Oh, you gotta hit him.
You know what I mean.
Like just trolling me hard andlike in my weakest state when I
just rage quit the game.
And like I legit rage quit andtwo years later he's there to
watch me beat the game, which isa pretty cool feeling, because
I never thought I would do it.
(11:34):
Need to do the DLC to feelcompletionist.
I didn't do all the quests, Ididn't kill.
I only killed one dragon in thewhole game because I could care
less about a dragon.
I only killed one dragon in thewhole game because I could care
less about a dragon.
It doesn't do anything for meto slay a dragon, just saying,
(11:56):
but I still beat the game.
Yeah, so my point is all thisis I feel like I've completed it
and now I can play other games.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I feel like I've unlocked freedom well, you had
freedom when you rage, quit tooyeah, but it always drew me back
.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I don't.
I don't like losing, you knowwhat I'm saying, and it always
drew me back.
I don't like losing.
You know what I'm saying.
Yeah, and quitting is notreally me, and I just talked
about quitting my job, but I'mtrying to think of the right
words to say this, because I'vebeen thinking about this episode
(12:42):
all week and I didn't know howit was going to come out and I
feel like I'm not explainingmyself well, but I didn't quit.
I got stressed I would take twoor three week breaks from the
game because I knew when Ilogged in I had to fight a hard
boss.
And you know, on a day whereI'm just tired and I just want
(13:03):
to sit on the couch, elden Ringis not the game to just turn on
and play it.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Well, it can be but, not in the situation that you're
describing, where you know thenext thing is a tough boss fight
.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Right, because that's how I usually play and,
honestly, like when you'replaying around like limb grave,
the weeping peninsula, learningof the lakes, the game's pretty
easy.
Well, back up, once you've putin 50 hours and you've learned
how to play the game, it'sfairly an easy area.
Caleb sucks right, caleb just.
(13:41):
But when you start getting intolike the capital and the Altus
plateau and all that stuff, andthen, oh my God, forget about
the mountaintops to the giants,everything kills you, you know
what I mean.
But when you learn the game, yourealize you've always said this
you realize the game isintended to be beat.
(14:02):
You realize the game is intendedto be beat, but once when
you're, when you're goingthrough that learning curve of
never playing this type of game,you feel like powerless and
then you achieve a big win.
You know it's, it's monumental.
So I will have doc link it inthe chat to the video where I do
(14:23):
it and I'll I'll have them putthe timestamp in for my kill so
you guys can see it.
But now that it's over, right,I'm going to fight Millennia.
That's no problem.
But now I'm talking about like,okay, now I have the freedom,
I'm going to play a new game.
What am I going to play?
(14:46):
I own Dark Souls 3, so I startedmessing around with that.
Okay, I'm definitely like 100%going to play Final Fantasy XIV
because I want to finish theworst story ever, because I'm
going to give it a shot for thesecond part story ever, because
I'm going to give it a shot forthe second part.
The Realm Reborn is the dumbest.
(15:10):
Like.
Swtor's class story is so toptier that going to Realm Reborn
in Final Fantasy 14 is just dumb.
Run out of the room, go killtwo things.
Come back, talk to this guy,marcus.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I didn't realize that you thought Star Wars Episode 4
, a New Hope, was stupid Ididn't say that you did.
You just said a roam reborn wasthe worst video game story ever
.
But it's just a new hope with afinal fantasy coat of paint,
(15:49):
yeah, but there's no words.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Everything is.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
There's no everything you know, oh, you don't like
reading your story.
I like I.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I'm a.
I'm a.
I'm a greedy gamer.
I don't want to read my story,like I want, like that's why I
love swotor so much.
And they like the conversation.
Even world of warcraft hasconversation, like some of it is
tech space fine, but they wantme to get involved in this quest
of this guy telling me to gosave his dog and come back and
give him his, his dog tag andthen, as soon as I'm done with
(16:19):
that, oh could you go get me aglass of milk, come on back and
you spend your time runningaround.
It's just dumb.
It's I call it dumb stretchcontent.
You know what I mean.
Purposely made a thousandquests because when in MMO,
people grind as soon as it comesout, like anybody that
(16:40):
complains that a realm reborn asan entry story to like there's
not enough content for an entrystory in an mmo.
It ain't final fantasy 14.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
There's plenty of content might be dumb stretch
content, but it's there's plentyof content one of the toughest
things about streaming finalfantasy 14 for me is you can
literally do a two or three hourstream on a certain part of
that story and end up castingzero magic spells, because the
(17:14):
entire time you're just runningaround doing scenes, having
people talk to you and thenplaying final fantasy fedex
simulator where it's.
It is like take a carrot tothis person and bring a glass of
wine to this person and it ischallenging to enjoy that at
times.
The reason final fantasy 14 isa great story is because once
(17:39):
you get past the part, thinkabout like a roller coaster,
marcus, you're on the partyou're complaining about the
part where you're on the chains,getting like dragged up to the
top.
And it is a very tall drag allthe way up to the top.
It's awful Once it starts going, and especially once you start
getting content unlocked thatyou can play with other people.
(18:01):
Then it becomes the fun part ofwhat an MMO can be Right.
And does Final Fantasy XIVbalance that experience?
No, I really don't think theydo to the story that they want
to tell, and it's such a longstory that does not have any
editing that you end up doing alot of those fetch quests and a
(18:26):
lot of those unvoiced cut scenes.
It's very hard to believe.
All of it is important.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Right, so you're saying it better than me, but my
point is I know there's a lightat the end of the tunnel, but
my point is I know there's alight at the end of the tunnel,
but it's such a drag to getthere.
Yeah, the game is so boring forme right now, and the other
thing okay, so I'm gonna back itup just skip the cut scenes
(18:53):
then and get to the part whereyou can play.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Do I just space bar?
Well, there's no space bar.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
You have to skip the whole thing yeah, you skip the
whole thing, like anyconversation in a like, in a
quest.
I try to skip it as best as Ican like.
Yeah, the other side of thatyeah, I turn on your what.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
What's your go-to music playlist got in it for,
like, when you're gaming?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
but you don't need.
I never need nothing beats, ahwell, okay, but uh, but what I'm
trying to say, doc, is theother side of final fantasy 14.
That's tough.
Is that?
Like I don't care about, likeI'm gonna be a tank, I don't
care about being a dancer or amagic guy or a new job, like i't
(19:36):
care.
The game forces you to startanother job to be able to get
experience points, to be able tolevel up, because I'm
over-leveled for the contentthat I'm doing, but I'm almost
at the level of unlocking a raid, but in the story content I'm
20 levels underneath that.
So the game wants you to gobackwards and level your
(19:58):
character, start a a new job tolevel a new character, to get it
up to speed.
So you're getting experienceand you kind of stay with the
story and build.
It's not the type of player Iam.
I'm a one guy player.
Like give me a player, I cangive me a character and let me
play.
Sounds like you need to just.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You need to just buy the unlock for the story and go
straight to dawn trail okay, buthere's the problem.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Here's the problem.
A good friend of mine his nameis dr gamology also told me that
the game is going to teach mehow to do things that you can't
just skip it, because when yougo into a raid in dawn trail,
they're and they're going toexpect you to remember a
mechanic or remember somethingfrom a realm rewards raid and
you don't know Trail.
And they're going to expect youto remember a mechanic or
remember something from a RealmRewards raid and you don't know
(20:43):
it and you're wiping the group.
They're going to be like bro,didn't you do this?
No, I didn't.
You got to teach me.
We don't want to See you later.
You know what I mean.
I don't want to be that guy.
I'm going to go back to EldenRing.
You don't do it half-ass, youjust got to do it.
I'm gonna complain like a whinybitch, but I am committing to
(21:05):
be a realm reborn so I neverhave to do that dumb story again
, just like I.
If I never in my life ever haveto do the smuggler story in
star Wars, the old Republic, Iwill be thrilled.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Oh my gosh, the trooper story sucks too.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
The trooper is better than the smuggler.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
The Republic is such a waste of time.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Okay, I will.
Well, let's argue.
The Jedi story is pretty good.
You're, you're come in like youlike there's a bunch of bad
shit going on.
Some people turn on you.
You get your first lightsaber.
I don't care who you are, whenyou get your first lightsaber,
that's an awesome feeling ohsure, also the jedi knight story
(21:51):
is the hero's journey.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
They even call you the herald at the beginning,
first planet.
The Herald of change right Is apart of the monomyth structure.
That's what signals the personto receive the call to adventure
and step out and go to save thegalaxy.
Like it is, unapologeticallythe hero's story.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Can I ask you a question?
It's just more fun being a Sith, what?
What's the hero's journey?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
We don't have enough time on our recording schedule
for that, but if you areinterested, there is an award
winning book that I wrote,called the gamer's journey, that
you can purchase from the DrGameology merch store at Dr
Gameologycom, and I would lovefor all of you to get your copy
(22:44):
and to know what the hero'sjourney is.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Oh my God, that's too funny.
Oh man that that.
That was, that was made my day.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, I mean all the podcasts I listened to.
They plug their products allthe time.
I have no shame Like I PodcastsI listen to.
They plug their products allthe time.
I have no shame Like I got tosell these, otherwise there's no
point of even doing it, right.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
I want to make a t-shirt or a hat logo where half
of it is your logo and half ofit's mine, and like, yeah, like
I have some merch ideas forlater.
I think we're going to do.
We're going to do big things,but anyway, I guess for me, have
you ever played a game whereyou wanted to be into it but it
(23:29):
was really hard, but once youactually got past that threshold
like there's that invisiblethreshold, and then all of a
sudden it just clicks all thetime.
Okay, that's how I feel withfinal fantasy 14.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like, there's that invisible threshold and then all
of a sudden it just clicks Allthe time.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Okay, that's how I feel with Final Fantasy XIV.
Like I love the combat, I lovethe graphics.
I think the idea of going backinto raiding again in dungeons
or whatever they're called yeah,flashpoints, whatever, whatever
there may be called Like all ofthat, I am a true MMO player.
I love it.
But I just haven't found, Ijust haven't crossed that
(24:04):
threshold yet with Final Fantasy14.
Yeah, fair enough.
But I'm gonna circle way back towhat you said a little while
ago about streaming it.
This is a hot take.
I do not think that MMOs aregood stream games, because Nick
(24:26):
said this to me years ago hegoes.
Marcus, I love that you'repassionate about streaming, I
love that you're passionateabout rating, but can I tell you
the truth and I said sure hegoes when you're rating it just
looks like a bunch of flashydots and little people running
around.
It makes no sense to anybody whodoesn't play the game.
It's really hard for me towatch you play that and it stuck
(24:50):
with me all this time.
And it's right, cause then I'llgo into, like somebody's stream
and watch them rating orplaying it and if I don't know
that raid'm like makes no sensethis isn't content.
But when you're in expedition33 and you're playing the rock
monster which I watched happenand like all I kept going was
(25:11):
rock lobster, you know what Imean and and I would I could get
into it because the menu showedlike your attacks and like the
different spells or whatever youwere doing, and you can see and
understand that.
Hey boss, here I'm fighting theboss, right, anybody can watch
that and get into it.
(25:31):
Where, if it's an over-the-topview of you raiding and there's
this like worm wiggling its armsand then there's just flashing
lights everywhere and people arefreaking out like people are
talking about watch out for theblue dot, oh, watch out for this
it's.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
It's not, it's not easy to understand for a
non-raider or something likethat in the game yeah, I think a
lot of the reason why mychannel turned around and
started getting me places isbecause, as much as I like Final
Fantasy XIV, it's because Idecided to play Dragon Age, the
(26:09):
Veil Guard, silent Hill 2,metaphor, refantasio and
eventually found my way recentlyinto Expedition 33.
Because those games you can lookat them and understand what is
happening, you can feel theemotion, you can feel my tension
.
(26:30):
And if I'm doing a Savage raidin Final Fantasy XIV and that's
my stream content and those aremy YouTube shorts and I try to
capture the big moments.
I might have 12 seconds where Imake five really good split
second decisions, but to aperson who doesn't know that
fight, it just looks like Imoved and I didn't die and I'm
(26:52):
excited about something, butit's not clear what.
Or if those five decisions gobad and I die terribly in that
12 seconds Again, it's likeunless I make it funny, because
dying in video games is prettyhilarious If I make it funny,
that short can still work.
But if it's like if it comesdown to a random person seeing
(27:15):
Dr Gameology flash through theirswiping up and down and they're
like, oh, I don't even knowwhat I just saw, so they're
going to give me three secondsof their energy if that and move
on.
And I didn't connect withanyone because the game is too
dense.
It doesn't articulate what ishappening on screen to the
(27:36):
casual audience, right.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
And I'm with you.
We're to the casual audience,right, and I'm with you.
We're saying the same thing andit's nothing against any
creators who play and raid inMMOs.
But I connect better to acontent creator who's playing
Pokemon or Mortal Kombat orExpedition 33, or when you're
(28:00):
fighting X boss in Final FantasyVII Rebirth.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
That I can understand what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, if you compare the footage of a Final Fantasy
VII Rebirth boss fight with anMMO boss fight, even if they're
both complicated, thestory-based game is easier to
understand.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, so we're saying and this podcast episode is
kind of turning into theemotions you're playing during a
story game.
Yeah, you know, and that's mypoint here is where, like it
took me a while to get into theElden Ring or now Final Fantasy
(28:50):
14, that because I have to do it.
But I'm also want to play StarWars Jedi Survivor because I
never played it.
I also want to play Star WarsJedi Survivor because I never
played it.
I also want to play all ofthese other games.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Then don't play Final Fantasy 14, Marcus.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
No, no, no, no, no.
You're missing my point.
I'm I need to play it becauseit's that game that's lingering
in the background that I need toget to the point where you tell
me the story is good, because Ineed to see what this game can
be.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
But I've played a Realm Reborn on four different
characters for different reasons.
I like a Realm Reborn.
I think that that's the part ofthe game where it's simple
enough that you can play it andenjoy it and not feel any
anxiety going into the contentOnce you hit a certain point and
(29:51):
I don't know where this pointis, because I've only made it
there once I have one end gamecharacter.
So there's a lot of contentthat I've only done one time.
Okay, but A Realm Reborn, Ihave familiarity, muscle memory.
I start a dungeon and Iinstantly know exactly what I'm
in for.
The other stuff.
(30:12):
It's like have I done thisbefore?
And it feels new.
It's like, no, you've actuallydone this one seven times, but
it's so hard.
Final Fantasy 14 is a hard videogame and if you're a Savage
Raider listening to me, justknow I've only killed like three
Savage bosses my whole life.
That's not what I'm saying ishard.
(30:32):
I'm saying that it expects youto live that game and there is a
point with their goal of makingeach expansion harder than the
previous one and building onthat knowledge that I just feel
when I'm playing Dawn Trail andEndwalker and Shadowbringers, I
feel like I'm not the intendedaudience for that game, even
(30:55):
though I love things in thestory more than any other games
I've played.
The story is magnificent.
It's just very hard to playbecause it causes anxiety for me
In a way that Elden Ringdoesn't.
Because I'm the five-time,five-time, five-time, five-time,
(31:18):
you know, like Booker T, likeI've beaten Elden Ring and I
know what to expect, it doesn'tcause anxiety in me anymore.
Even when I'm stuck on a boss,it's like, okay, I'm going to
keep playing this until I get it.
Final Fantasy 14 makes me feelstraight up stupid, because my
friends that play it more thanme are so good at handling what
(31:41):
that game throws at you.
They just feel it, they know it, they see the markers on the
ground and they just movecorrectly.
For me, I get one shot and oneshot and one shot and getting
one shot in boss fights.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, but you're talking about Savage Raid one
shots.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I'm talking about regular story mode, marcus.
They still one shot you.
That's the mechanic of how theymake the MMO boss and MMO boss
is every boss seems to havecertain things that if you have
two damage markers on you fromdoing mechanics incorrectly, the
next thing that hits you isgoing to kill you, no matter
(32:19):
from full health or whatever.
It's hard.
It does legitimately cause meto question whether I belong in
the game.
In story mode games, it's allabout me.
It's not about the other sevenplayers and it's not about it's
(32:43):
not as much about repetitionsand memorizing specific things.
It's like your instincts cancarry you through more of the
game process than in an MMO.
Mmos you have to practice.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, I, I, I completely agree, and you know I
used to be the super socialgamer and I only was social.
But I have found myself thatI'm it's if I don't win an Elden
Ring, it's not your fault,because you didn't heal me, it's
because I didn't roll or Ididn't do the mechanic right.
(33:15):
You know what I mean?
I was in like we were watchingme do Dark souls 3.
It's the first boss and he'sannihilating me.
Why?
Because I'm rolling, like it'selden ring, not a game that's
older and the the the roll delayis bigger.
The mechanic is different.
(33:36):
Like you need to, you see, move.
You need to roll a half asecond before his arm comes all
the way down.
The mechanic is different, butit's only up to me.
But at the same time, I havethat commitment to where, like,
I have to play final fantasy 14.
I got to do it just so I canget through that and, like, go
(33:58):
to the next step, cause,honestly, I miss rating, I miss
doing that stuff in in this game.
There's rates, like in thestory content, right, and that
is exciting to me.
Yeah, there's different kindstoo, and what's one game that
you played forever ago that youplayed and you got.
(34:23):
I don't want to say the wordstuck, but got to a point where
you're like I can't play thisgame.
It's too hard, I can't get intothe story.
I just don't feel this game isconnecting with me.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
The Legend of Zelda, breath of the Wild.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Ooh, interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Tell me why?
Because it's everything aboutvideo games that I hate.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Hey, so everybody listening to the Gaming Persona?
Wasn't that an in-depth reasonfrom the doc?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Everybody give him a high five.
I don't.
I don't like open worlds.
I don't like weapons that break.
I don't like I.
I don't like questing withoutquest lists.
I don't like maps withoutobjectives.
I don't that's how I didn't.
Elden Ring has a map with thegold line on it.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
There, it is Okay yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Like Elden Ring.
I felt like I.
I have made the comparison ofbreath of the wild and Elden
Ring on this podcast before.
Maybe not with you, I know forsure I talked about previous.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
You know, yeah, that Jenny girl, yeah, yeahny girl
yeah, yeah, she's, she's amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I know I've talked with her about this elden ring
is more compelling to me yeah,elden ring is more compelling to
me as a video game and I lovezelda.
I love ocarina of time andtwilight princess so much.
Those are two of my favoritegames of all time and I, I just
I missed the structure.
I I missed link, havingdifferent items that he can use
(36:09):
to navigate through things.
I felt like all of hisinventory is generic, in breath
of the wild, like there's nohookshot and that's such a big
letdown to me, like the hookshotis essential to being link.
So there's just a lot of thingsin it where it's like this
zelda game uses the name zeldabut it wasn't made for me.
(36:32):
But I have beaten it.
There was a time two years agowhere I just was like I'm gonna
going to find a guide, I'm goingto use my phone and my other
screen on my computer orwhatever it is that I'm sitting
next to.
I'm going to turn this gameinto what I need it to be in
(36:52):
order for me to kill Beast Ganon, and I did.
I forced it to be the storythat I needed it to be by tuning
out all the open world and justcreating objectives.
Sure, and and and.
(37:13):
So I did that.
I try to do that with tears ofthe kingdom and have not
succeeded in that same way.
It's just so massive of a gameI haven't figured out how to
simplify it to where I can focusand enjoy it.
Also, I do not like buildingthings marcus so yeah, tears of
(37:33):
the kingdom is a big problem forme yeah, I can.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
I can see that I don't want to.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I won't.
I don't want to go around themap looking for five specific
types of things to build a wingvehicle that I can only use one
time.
I hate it.
Once the game introduced that,I was like oh, I think I'm done.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, and I see what you're saying because I agree.
The reason why I didn't beatBreath of the Wild is because
one, I got lost and two, I don'tlike weapons that break.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I don't like weapons that break at all.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
It's like did you ever play the Fallout games?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Again for like 45 minutes.
Yes, Thank you, yep.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
So you and I are on the same page here with that,
here with that, and I agree withyou on the complete open world,
giving you four dots of thedungeons you have to go to, but
that's it.
It did nothing for me becauseit's, uh, but the same thing
(38:36):
with elden ring, just for therecord, like I didn't do a lot
of the quests because there's no, you don't know they exist.
Or you talk to somebody andthey're talking about their
uncle's, brother's, cousin'ssister that lives next to a
church in the northwest buildingof the northwest town, in this
(39:00):
snowy world, and you're likewhere the fuck is that?
And then 70 hours later, youfind this guy leaning against
this bush in the snowy worldgoing well, you met my sister 70
hours ago.
Too bad, she died.
Fuck you Quest over, you knowwhat I mean.
It's like what and they don'tgive you any of.
(39:23):
They don't give you any of thatinformation.
It's not like there's a questlog somewhere where you can go
back, and it's almost like Iwant to go back to play the game
again and actually play it thatway you could.
There's new game plus rightjourney to continue the journey.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Play it that way you could.
There's New Game Plus RightJourney 2.
Continue the journey.
Wait, did I just end theepisode no?
Speaker 1 (39:52):
You fucked with me.
Hey, you know what I'm notgoing to?
Pax East, which is this weekend, starts today.
You know what really stinks Is?
I just found out Elden RingNight Rain has a big booth there
.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, that would have been cool.
I had someone in my Discordmessage me that they saw a cool
mental health talk and theythought of me.
I was like, yeah, I'm not atthat.
One this year Could have beenme.
And they're like, oh, you'renot here, so, nope, I'm not
there.
I had too much travel alreadythis week.
It just did not fit into mylife.
Also, the beginning of May,when you're a parent with a high
(40:27):
schooler, you have AP exams.
If you're their ride to school,it's kind of important that
you're at home.
So it's tough, but you know hecan't be in high school forever,
so Pax East will be in myfuture someday, didn't it used
to be in February?
My life was so much easier whenit was in February.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I think it was March.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
It was always in March.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, this is the latest.
It was, but I thought about it.
Okay, so real talk.
I was going to go to PAX onSunday with my son, but this
Sunday is Mother's Day weekend.
There's a zero chance I'm doingthat.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Yeah, what are they doing, but they don't care.
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Well, no, it's.
They're just, they're appealingto a different crowd.
Like it would be cool Now if mywife was a gamer.
That'd be a cool Mother's Day,yeah, you know what I mean.
Like hey, hey, let's go checkthis out, you know.
But she's not so we just nextyear, I'll go.
Next year my son will be seven,yeah, seven, and we'll go, and
(41:37):
yeah, anyway.
So the moral of my story is I'mexcited to commit to games and
I have some games that I want tocomplete, and I'm enjoying
making content again, can I?
That's so great.
(41:57):
I have a question for you,though.
That's so great.
I have a question for you,though.
Yeah, what's it like flying toSeattle for one day?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Oh my gosh, I have been paying for it all week.
Marcus, I was so jet-laggedyesterday, and when I put the
podcast up last night because Ido that on Wednesday nights I
had very little sleep going intoThursday morning, so I had to
wake up, take my son to school,sleep in.
(42:28):
I didn't wake up in time for mystream, so I did my first
meeting of the day for work, andthen I decided to stream over
my lunch break instead, so Iflip-flopped a little bit of my
time so that I could still havea stream today.
It worked out fine, got a lotof new followers, had some good
chat, but more people work whenI stream at lunchtime, so
(42:51):
sometimes the chat's reallyquiet and it feels a little bit
alone.
But I saw people there had somechannels rate into me, so it
was still nice.
Expedition 33 is kind of a hardgame, and I haven't lowered the
difficulty to story yet becauseI'm still trying to push through
normal.
But I'm also getting lost inthe maps and there's no clear
(43:15):
indicator of where I'm trying togo, so I'm running in circles a
lot, and that's frustrating me.
I just gotta get through it.
So I have a question.
The thing about seattle, though, is you lose time when you come
back east, and so dinner timedoes not feel like dinner time.
Sleep time does not feel likesleep time.
You don't need lunch anymore,and I'm trying to get back to
(43:39):
being the normal version of me.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Okay, I get that.
Let me ask you a question aboutexpedition 33.
Sure, do you watch a video, anyvideos on YouTube, to be like,
hey, like I'm lost in planet,like white shadow.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
No way.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
I don't, I'm playing it, just completely me I don't
care if I get stuck and peopleneed to leave because oh, this
loser's stuck, then they weren't, oh, they weren't meant to be
with me for this journey.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Anyway, nope, I don't mean it like that.
I I'm sorry.
I meant it as in, so you're notsuper frustrated.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I was mildly annoyed today, but I was still able to
talk through it and just be likeI ran in a circle again.
You know, just kind of likeself-deprecating humor or making
fun of yourself just making funof me in the situation you you
know, like not being mean to meand definitely not being mean to
the game.
I do think most games like thelast of us, part 2, final
(44:51):
fantasy 16 they have mechanicsin them where you can press the
right stick down and somethingwill light up that shows you the
direction you're supposed to begoing, like the camera will pan
over and give you a hint ofwhat you're supposed to be
aiming for.
I can't figure out thatExpedition 33 has that.
(45:13):
So, as a result, it's all aboutmy eyeballs noticing things and
I just don't notice the thingsI need to notice the way these
maps work and the terrains work.
Don't notice the things I needto notice the way these maps
work and the terrains work.
Yeah.
(45:33):
So I do end up spending a lot ofextra time in every map zone,
but that's good in a turn-basedgame because you're going to
level up, yeah, but I still amgetting wiped out very fast from
the enemies I'm facing.
So they have balanced the gamein a way that it is pretty
unforgiving.
I'm sure story mode this doesnot apply, but my dodge is, the
(45:54):
first half hour to hour of mystream are so bad that I just am
taking all these hits to theface and you can't you can't win
that way.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
No, I, I'm with you, you know it's.
Can you change the difficultyon the fly?
Yeah, you can move it up ordown at any time, so I almost
challenge you to when you get arunning in a circle, switch it
to story mode so you can justbreeze through and get to where
(46:24):
you're going.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yeah, I could do that .
That's how I look at it atleast Especially if there's mobs
that I've already killed two orthree times.
Every time you rest at a save,they're like flags of light.
Right, you find a save flagsave.
They're like flags of light.
Right, you find a save flag andyou, every time you rest, your
whole party gets full healthagain.
(46:48):
But the enemies respond.
It's kind of similar tomeditating in jedi fallen order
right, like everything staysdead until you save or you spend
your skill points, and then thestormtroopers you already
killed are back.
So if you, if you never saveand you don't need that full
heel, then things stay dead andyou don't have to worry about it
(47:11):
.
You can run around free.
But also I don't want to berunning around where all my
people are at like 25% health,cause that's going to mean the
next fight is going to be verytough, cause I I have to play it
perfectly.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I'm still having a lot of fun with the game, though
, Marcus.
It's an amazing game.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Well, I know you are.
I actually know you are becauseyour stream content of playing
that game is the best out of anystream content I've ever
watched of you.
Oh, really, yeah, when you'replaying Final Fantasy VII
Rebirth for the 9,000th time onthe hardest difficulty, you
(47:55):
don't have the same passionplaying that as you do this game
.
I don't know if it's becauseit's your first playthrough and
everything is new, or the gameis, so I'm gonna say the word
invigorating or exciting for youthat, like it comes out, and I
(48:18):
think a turn-based game is agreat stream game for you
because you can be comical andmethodical at the same time I
had a moment today I'm glad yousaid that I had a moment today
on stream where every turn-basedfight is essentially a puzzle.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
I choose my moves and then I hope to execute my
dodges and parries so that I canavoid damage.
And then I choose my moves.
I'm trying to strategicallymove the enemy's health bars
down to zero.
Before mine hit zero and therewas this one fight that kept
wiping me out the enemies weredoing this move where they self
(48:57):
stab and that would give themshields on their health bar that
make them so.
I can't hurt them, but I cantry to wear their shields down.
And when they self-stab topower their next attack up,
they're doing their own damageto themselves.
Right, because they're stabbingthemselves in the torso to
power themselves up, right.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
And.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
I had to do this fight about three times before I
broke through and because it'sturn-based, and I realized, oh
my gosh, I have the next twomoves and I'm down to one enemy
in this mob out of three andthey have 20% and no shield and
I have my biggest hit, Like.
So I just was able.
(49:40):
Cause it's turn-based, I don'thave to worry about anything.
I can just enjoy the moment andsay my audience like it's over,
we got it this time.
And then I press the button andthen we just see it happen.
There's no stress, it's just acelebration.
And it's a different kind offeeling than if you're in the
action based fight, because youknow that moments in front of
(50:02):
you but there's still the stressof I have to execute.
But in this it's like solving aRubik's Cube, Like you know.
Oh, I rotate this row two timesand it's over, right, and you
can just look at it and be likeyou're mine.
Yeah, it's a different feelingcompletely.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
I'll be excited once you beat expedition 33 or
whatever and you play your nextturn-based game on stream,
because I think, like man, yourcontent is so good playing a
turn-based game well, we'll see.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
I've never played the the most recent pokemon, if you
can believe that no, you got todo like octopath traveler or
something okay, okay, you got toplay a game that you like are
blind one of the things, sincewe already have mentioned final
fantasy 7 in the last fiveminutes, marcus, a lot of people
talking about Expedition 33 onpodcasts and online in the
(51:05):
circles that I listen to and getinformation from, they're
talking about something that'svery important to me as the
author of the Gamer's Journey,and that is this there are a
generation of gamers that havenot played Final Fantasy VII,
and Final Fantasy VII doesn'tmatter to them, but they will
(51:26):
play Expedition 33 because it'sso hot right now, in 2025.
Because of the story of how itwas made by ex-Ubisofters, 33 of
them decided to make this gametogether.
Right, like.
That's a powerful story abouttaking back your power and doing
(51:47):
something with it and changingthe industry.
It's doing turn-based in a waythat is not like other
turn-based games.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Marcus they revolute this game, so there's moments in
time, right, yeah, right, andI'm gonna use the iphone.
When the iPhone came out, itwas all there was was an Android
and it was clunky, and Applemade this thing that
revolutionized the world.
Same thing with an iPad, or aniPad.
(52:16):
What was the music?
Speaker 2 (52:22):
one called Like an iPod, ipod, ipod shuffle, yeah,
ipod.
What was the music one calledLike an iPod?
Ipod, ipod shuffle, yeah iPod.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
But these are moments .
Turn-based games moving forwardwill always come back to now.
Oh shit, if you're making aturn-based game right now,
you're going fuck.
We're going to have to go backto the drawing board right now.
This game is incredible.
Look what it's done.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
You know, like Pokemon on the Switch 2, right.
Eventually it's going to happenand they're playing to a
younger audience.
They don't need somethingthat's as complex as Expedition
33, but they need to look at itand figure out what's the
Pokemon version of whatExpedition 33 is doing, and
that's what we're talking about.
It's an innovation to one ofthe oldest styles of gameplay.
(53:11):
It's Final Fantasy 1, right,turn-based role-playing game,
but it's got such good style andculture.
It's a window into Frenchculture.
One of my constant supporterssince I started streaming on
Twitch actually is in France andI was talking to him on stream
(53:37):
this week.
It goes by the handle T-Lop asI pronounce it I don't know if
I'm pronouncing it right becauseyou're just reading it in the
chat, but talking with him, andhe was around when I was playing
persona 5 royal.
But now we have the culturalconnection of exposition 33
being a french rpg that's doinglike a jrpg, like japan, but
(53:58):
like what's, what's the Frenchculture inspired RPG, and this
is it, so it's unique in thatway, too.
It's.
This is, potentially, if thisgame holds and has a story that
resonates and characters thatresonate, and you have moments
in the game that can becomememes and can become those
(54:18):
mythological moments like Aerithgetting killed by Sephiroth and
I'm sure it will have momentslike that because it's so tragic
and beautiful already, likethis could be people's Final
Fantasy VII yes.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
But it changed the way games are played.
Yeah, turn-based gamesTurn-based.
You know what I mean.
Right, and this, we're gonnalook back when we're 60 and
people are still going to be or50 or 60.
And we're kids now that areplaying this game, are going to
talk about this game back in theday and somebody is going to
(54:56):
remake this game because it wasso influential now.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
That's very true.
I'm just I'm so excited becausewhen games are brand new,
historically I'm not on thebandwagon.
I show up for games way afterusually, but because I'm trying
to grow in bigger ways on Twitch, I've been bouncing around the
new games and the trendinghotness.
(55:24):
And Assassin's Creed Shadowsdid not work for me, monster
Hunter did not work for me.
I tried, but as soon as Iturned on Expedition 33, it just
grabbed me and I loved what washappening in my mind and I
(55:46):
don't always find that.
But since I did, it's like I'vebeen adding extra days to my
stream schedule.
I've been trying to figure outhow can I play this with my
community, cause I'm not playingit without my community either,
like that would ruin it becausethen I would know what's coming
, either like that would ruin itbecause then I would know
(56:07):
what's coming.
So it's just been reallyexciting to hang out with my
friends on twitch and talk aboutthe mental health topics.
And, oh my gosh, marcus, weadded a new feature to my
channel.
I want to talk to you about it.
Okay, it came from this, my d20stress ball.
I love that.
I created a new channel, pointredeem, where you can pay, and I
(56:27):
will roll this dice and I havea spreadsheet with over 50
mental health for gamers topicsand it's not prepared.
I don't know what I'm going totalk about, but but I roll it, I
show the number to the screen.
So we rolled a four.
So then I go to the spreadsheet, I put the thing above my head
(56:49):
and we've done it two times NowI put the title above my head
and then I just talk about itlike the old school mental
health moments I used to do, butwith a little bit more extra
gaming flair to it with the D 20.
And it's been so fun, like Ihave taken the highlights out on
Twitch but I haven't doneanything with them yet.
But I really need to becausethey're really fun content and
(57:10):
it's something that can justsend me into just chatting mode
for five to seven minutes andthen pop back into the game.
And it's so in line with themission of the channel.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
That's amazing.
And you make it, and you makethe channel point redemption
expensive enough to where notevery single person can redeem
it.
It's somebody that has to comeback a couple times in order to
earn it.
You know what I'm saying.
You don't want that to be ahundred point return, and then
(57:41):
you're doing it all the time.
You want it to be a hundredpoint return, and then you're
doing it all the time you wantit to be like oh snap, t-lop
just redeemed this.
We haven't done this in threedays, let's go, you know what I
mean.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
I gotta look at that because I wasn't thinking about
that, but that's a really goodpoint.
But so far we've only done oneper stream.
It's not every single stream.
Speaker 1 (57:59):
It's still special but now it's right.
No, no, I understand that.
And even if it's one everysingle stream, it's still
special.
But now it's right.
No, no, no, I understand that.
And even if it's one everystream, that's good.
But you want the, you want itto cost enough to where, if you
stream for two hours, you don'twant somebody to earn that.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
You want them to have to come back and earn it with
more points, yeah, and so thetwo topics I've done so far are
the psychology of vr gaming,which you know.
You know I love vr gaming formy exercise, it's just like the
coolest.
But I talked about vaderimmortal and I talked about the
batman simulator game and I, youknow I talked about other games
(58:36):
too, but just yeah, I love vrgaming, not not as a game, I
love it as an excuse to exercisewhile you're gaming, sure, and
then we also talked about escapeand coping as a gamer, because
you know, escape is one of thosewords that psychology
professionals use in a prettydemeaning way towards gamers.
(59:00):
And I'm not about that.
I don't, I don't take thatlightly.
I stand up for us and talkabout what escape actually is
there is no escape marcus don'tmake
Speaker 1 (59:12):
me destroy you but you don't have to destroy me.
I'm right here, you know, but Ido enjoy that you're growing in
your content creation andyou're finding your path right,
because content creation is nota sprint, it's a marathon.
(59:37):
Oh yeah, you know what I meanand you have to find your and
you're going to realize likesome things work, some things
don't.
And that I love that stressball channel redemption, because
you it forces you to have amental health moment when you're
least expecting it.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
Right yeah, it's really cool too, cause the
audience gets to control that.
Right, yeah, we also have the.
We also have the conversationcards from geek therapeutics
that I can use.
We also could do the old schoolmental health moment kind of
format I.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
I like this because it it's forcing you to do
something that you don't.
You don't know what's comingand it's forcing you to do
something that you don't.
You don't know what's comingand it's giving somebody and you
don't know, and they don't know.
And it's pretty rad when youget to talk about something
you're not expecting, cause ifyou're thinking about a mental
health moment, you're going tobe like, oh, I'm going to be,
(01:00:36):
I'm going to talk about X.
And you're going to think aboutthat for days where, if you're
just pulling up a random cementsheet, you're like, oh snap, I
wasn't expecting this, let's go.
And it puts you in it and itproves to your community that
you're really good at what youdo.
Because random topic comes upand you're like, oh snap, I got
(01:00:58):
this, no problem, let's go.
Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Yeah, I don't think about my topics for days at all,
ever anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
it's all improv well, so those are the things that
you keep to yourself, so yourcommunity doesn't know that.
But hey, whatever, you knowwhat I mean.
Nobody's, just us yeah, that'strue.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
No, everybody I.
I really do think that thereason I talk about things the
way I do is because I wishsometimes I was a comedian.
But it works.
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Well, wait wait 2025 doc is way more of a comedian
than 2019 doc.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Okay, what were you going tosay?
I was just going to ask youwhat's something you wish you
had become, but you never did.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Like me and comedy.
What is something that I wish Ibecame that I never did A
professional paintball playerplayer that's interesting
because I know, before I figuredout, what psychology was.
Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
I wanted to be either an nba player or an astronaut,
and I was age 10, so let's seehow we all see how that worked
out.
But you know what, if you havea, a call to adventure and you
need to be the hero of yourstory, go after it, because
sometimes there are going to bethings inside you that stay
alive, no matter how old you get, and you can always find ways
(01:02:31):
to use them and then, as always,continue the journey.
Thank you.
Welcome to the Gaming Persona Podcast.
I'm MarcusB814.
I'm joined by my esteemed bestfriend, Dr Gameology, and we're
here to talk about video gamesand sidebars.
Why?
Because that's what I do.
I'm here for the sidebar, he'shere to drop psychology on you,
and this is our show right now.
(00:21):
It's the first time the airconditioner's been on all year
and it's chilly, so I put on alight hoodie.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
That sounds so nice.
It's always running the ACwhere I am.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, but in the winter when you're like running
the AC and it's negative sixoutside at my house.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's May 8th, marcus.
Yeah, we just had Revenge ofthe Fifth, and May the Fourth be
with you, I know.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It was a great day, hmm.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I got called out by someone in my community because
I streamed Expedition 33 on Maythe 4th and I just was very
honest in my response.
I didn't even realize it wasMay the 4th, because it has been
so long since Star Wars gave meany joy.
Marcus, I woke up and had noidea.
(01:21):
Have you watched Andor?
No, had no idea.
Have you watched?
And?
Or?
No, none of it ever.
I watched season one.
It took me four attempts ofwatching the first episode
before I finally was able topush through and watch the whole
season.
Okay, it's hard.
The force is absent and I needthe force, marcus.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, I watched episode one of season two.
I haven't even watched it yet,but the first season was good.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, I did like it, but it was hard to get into for
me.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm working on my wiggle why?
I don't know, it warms me up,it's chilly.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Oh right, you got to keep your blood flowing so you
don't freeze over and die.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Well, I'm not going to freeze over and die.
I should turn off Discord.
So it's beeping.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Beep, beep, beep.
Marcus is too social.
This is what video games do toextroverts it just gives them an
endless supply of people tochit-chat with over nothing.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well no, it's just yeah anyway.
Well, let's get into this.
So where do I even start?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, if I was your parent, Marcus, I would accuse
you right now of all your fakefriends distracting you from
being a responsible adult.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Tomorrow's my last day at my job.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Oh, you quitter, Congrats.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, and then Monday I start everybody's like oh,
you're not taking a week off.
I'm like I went just went onvacation, like three weeks ago,
so I don't need another week off.
And I feel like if you're goingsomewhere on vacation, it's
worth it to like take the timeoff, but if you're not going
vacation, it's worth it to takethe time off, but if you're not
going anywhere it's kind of awaste to take a whole week off,
(03:09):
because by the middle of theweek you're bored, mm-hmm, you
know.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, if work is a significant part of your
identity and you don't have work, then you have no identity.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, no, it's not.
I'm just saying I can only justbe sitting at home doing
nothing for so long before I'mbored, you know.
I take a day off and, okay, Irelax for a little while, I
chill, I make a nice likebreakfast or lunch or whatever,
and I'm like all right, what amI going to do?
And then I play video games fora couple hours.
But then it's like eh, and I'mlike all right, what am I going
to do?
And then I play video games fora couple hours, but then it's
(03:45):
like eh, I got to go outside, Igot to go do something.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Got to go touch grass , Marcus.
I touch grass every day.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
My kid beats the living shit out of me in my yard
every single day because hethinks he's the WWE champion,
but now that he has the belt hewon't put it up.
He says our matches there's anon-title match Because he
doesn't want to lose it.
Well, what else?
All right.
So something wild happened tome today Not today, this week I
(04:17):
beat Elden Ring, so I canhappily say I'm Elden Lord.
It was a really special moment.
I'm going to talk about this alot today because it took me
literally.
So two years ago, at PAX East2023, I was there and we were
(04:39):
myself and A-Trax were waitingto play this game.
It was called like Crime City.
The developer was there, we hadan appointment, we were going
to be playing the gate, like wehad a free, like a guided demo
and like talk about the game,set up the recorder, the whole
nine and then, after everything,I had never hit the record
button.
(04:59):
So that was a fail.
Oh, it was awful.
I felt like terrible, butanyway.
So we were standing there andthere was this like I'm gonna
say like a 32 inch or 40 inch tvwith a controller, xbox, and it
had elden ring and I was like,why not never played it.
So I played it and it's.
(05:19):
There was a guy just standingthere and there was a.
It was by a grace, and I didn'teven know what it was.
So I just started running.
I don't remember the weapon Ihad.
It was some kind of sword.
And there was a guy juststanding there and there was a
it was by a grace and I didn'teven know what it was.
So I just started running.
I don't remember the weapon Ihad, it was some kind of sword,
and there was a giant there andI was like no problem, and
there's a.
There's a YouTube short of medoing it.
And it's absolutely my faultwhy I got demolished right,
(05:42):
absolutely my fault why I gotdemolished and fault why I got
demolished right, absolutely myfault why I got demolished.
And I looked at I was just likethis is not fair.
This is not fair and it's, itwas a video.
So it was two years ago and twoyears later, through all of my
ups and downs of playing thegame, quitting the game, rage,
(06:02):
quitting the game, coming backto the game, falling in love
with the game to beat the gameand what I mean by that is
beating the final bosses, causeit's kind of two for one Radagon
and the Elden beast and gettingthe final ending.
It was really an emotionaljourney for me.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
There's a video of it and I need to clip.
I need to like put the video inand just clip the final poll
and like the ending of me and myemotions, because I want to
kind of capture that.
But my point is it was twoyears of, I'm going to say,
blood, sweat and tears, but itwasn't really anything like that
(06:47):
.
It was two years of grindingthrough and realizing how good
the game is.
To get to that point I legitwas shaking.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, it was actually really cool to watch the video
when you shared it with me,marcus.
Yeah, it was actually reallycool to watch the video when you
shared it with me, marcus,because you demonstrated a lot
of the things that I'm alwaystalking about, about what games
can do that make them matter inour lives.
So for me, I was like anemotional vampire watching that
video, like I was just feedingoff of that energy and feeling
(07:21):
it with you.
Like I was just feeding off ofthat energy and feeling it with
you, because I remember thefirst time I won the game too,
and I wasn't recording it oranything, I was just playing
alone on my computer.
And I remember what it feltlike to realize.
(07:44):
So it's not when you see theboss go down.
That is one of the mostpowerful emotions that I can
even describe, marcus.
It's the moment when yourealize that you've got the hit
and if you push that button it'sover right.
Like so it's not the, it'srealizing that if you just do it
(08:07):
right, one more split second ofyour life.
That's what is intoxicating tome.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, I, I agree with you and I remember it took me a
week of fighting Radagon andlike learning it and like
realizing I can do it and allthese things.
I feel like I'm that that videoof me winning is going to end
(08:39):
up in one of your like classesor seminars someday classes or
seminars someday.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The ironic thing, marcus, is the YouTube video
that I'm stalled on that I wishI was done with is the same
exact thing, but it's mefighting Sephiroth on dynamic
difficulty in Final Fantasy VIIRebirth.
It's the exact same concept andso the difference is your video
is your live reaction.
The video I'm working on ismore of a analysis of how this
(09:13):
works and why it happens, so thewebcam part is me analyzing it,
not live.
Sure, you know, for peoplelistening to the podcast,
hopefully in the next week ortwo that video will be out on
youtube.
But the thing about tough bossfights and about ending stories
that you've been working on fora long time is you really do
(09:35):
have an investment in achievingsomething and the doubt also of
whether you ever will and when.
When you break through.
That's such a powerfulachievement-based feeling.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, so I agree with you, and I had no idea what I
was going to do.
I had no idea how I was goingto feel.
I had no idea what it was goingto look like when I did it.
But the things that happened tome because of Elden Ring is it
(10:09):
got me to start playing EldenRing on like a committed basis.
It got me to start makingcontent again.
You know, I'm not streaming ona regular schedule.
I just turn on the YouTube I'mnot on Twitch, I'm not on any of
that and then I make someshorts and I'm not streaming on
a regular schedule.
I just turn on the YouTube I'mnot on Twitch, I'm not on any of
that and then I make someshorts and I'm having a lot of
(10:29):
fun doing it.
And what I realized is I'm stillreally bad at the game.
Yeah, and I don't care how badI am, because I beat it Right
and it feels good to do it,because I worked at it for two
(10:53):
years.
It was like a two yearculmination of emotion popping
out and you know a tracks shoutout to a tracks.
You know he was there, standingright there recording me two
years ago.
He was there when they him,nick Ryu, were in our Discord
telling me you gotta roll better, just try rolling.
(11:13):
Oh, you gotta hit him.
You know what I mean.
Like just trolling me hard andlike in my weakest state when I
just rage quit the game.
And like I legit rage quit andtwo years later he's there to
watch me beat the game, which isa pretty cool feeling, because
I never thought I would do it.
(11:34):
Need to do the DLC to feelcompletionist.
I didn't do all the quests, Ididn't kill.
I only killed one dragon in thewhole game because I could care
less about a dragon.
I only killed one dragon in thewhole game because I could care
less about a dragon.
It doesn't do anything for meto slay a dragon, just saying,
(11:56):
but I still beat the game.
Yeah, so my point is all thisis I feel like I've completed it
and now I can play other games.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I feel like I've unlocked freedom well, you had
freedom when you rage, quit tooyeah, but it always drew me back
.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I don't.
I don't like losing, you knowwhat I'm saying, and it always
drew me back.
I don't like losing.
You know what I'm saying.
Yeah, and quitting is notreally me, and I just talked
about quitting my job, but I'mtrying to think of the right
words to say this, because I'vebeen thinking about this episode
(12:42):
all week and I didn't know howit was going to come out and I
feel like I'm not explainingmyself well, but I didn't quit.
I got stressed I would take twoor three week breaks from the
game because I knew when Ilogged in I had to fight a hard
boss.
And you know, on a day whereI'm just tired and I just want
(13:03):
to sit on the couch, elden Ringis not the game to just turn on
and play it.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Well, it can be but, not in the situation that you're
describing, where you know thenext thing is a tough boss fight
.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Right, because that's how I usually play and,
honestly, like when you'replaying around like limb grave,
the weeping peninsula, learningof the lakes, the game's pretty
easy.
Well, back up, once you've putin 50 hours and you've learned
how to play the game, it'sfairly an easy area.
Caleb sucks right, caleb just.
(13:41):
But when you start getting intolike the capital and the Altus
plateau and all that stuff, andthen, oh my God, forget about
the mountaintops to the giants,everything kills you, you know
what I mean.
But when you learn the game, yourealize you've always said this
you realize the game isintended to be beat.
(14:02):
You realize the game is intendedto be beat, but once when
you're, when you're goingthrough that learning curve of
never playing this type of game,you feel like powerless and
then you achieve a big win.
You know it's, it's monumental.
So I will have doc link it inthe chat to the video where I do
(14:23):
it and I'll I'll have them putthe timestamp in for my kill so
you guys can see it.
But now that it's over, right,I'm going to fight Millennia.
That's no problem.
But now I'm talking about like,okay, now I have the freedom,
I'm going to play a new game.
What am I going to play?
(14:46):
I own Dark Souls 3, so I startedmessing around with that.
Okay, I'm definitely like 100%going to play Final Fantasy XIV
because I want to finish theworst story ever, because I'm
going to give it a shot for thesecond part story ever, because
I'm going to give it a shot forthe second part.
The Realm Reborn is the dumbest.
(15:10):
Like.
Swtor's class story is so toptier that going to Realm Reborn
in Final Fantasy 14 is just dumb.
Run out of the room, go killtwo things.
Come back, talk to this guy,marcus.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I didn't realize that you thought Star Wars Episode 4
, a New Hope, was stupid Ididn't say that you did.
You just said a roam reborn wasthe worst video game story ever
.
But it's just a new hope with afinal fantasy coat of paint,
(15:49):
yeah, but there's no words.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Everything is.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
There's no everything you know, oh, you don't like
reading your story.
I like I.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I'm a.
I'm a.
I'm a greedy gamer.
I don't want to read my story,like I want, like that's why I
love swotor so much.
And they like the conversation.
Even world of warcraft hasconversation, like some of it is
tech space fine, but they wantme to get involved in this quest
of this guy telling me to gosave his dog and come back and
give him his, his dog tag andthen, as soon as I'm done with
(16:19):
that, oh could you go get me aglass of milk, come on back and
you spend your time runningaround.
It's just dumb.
It's I call it dumb stretchcontent.
You know what I mean.
Purposely made a thousandquests because when in MMO,
people grind as soon as it comesout, like anybody that
(16:40):
complains that a realm reborn asan entry story to like there's
not enough content for an entrystory in an mmo.
It ain't final fantasy 14.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
There's plenty of content might be dumb stretch
content, but it's there's plentyof content one of the toughest
things about streaming finalfantasy 14 for me is you can
literally do a two or three hourstream on a certain part of
that story and end up castingzero magic spells, because the
(17:14):
entire time you're just runningaround doing scenes, having
people talk to you and thenplaying final fantasy fedex
simulator where it's.
It is like take a carrot tothis person and bring a glass of
wine to this person and it ischallenging to enjoy that at
times.
The reason final fantasy 14 isa great story is because once
(17:39):
you get past the part, thinkabout like a roller coaster,
marcus, you're on the partyou're complaining about the
part where you're on the chains,getting like dragged up to the
top.
And it is a very tall drag allthe way up to the top.
It's awful Once it starts going, and especially once you start
getting content unlocked thatyou can play with other people.
(18:01):
Then it becomes the fun part ofwhat an MMO can be Right.
And does Final Fantasy XIVbalance that experience?
No, I really don't think theydo to the story that they want
to tell, and it's such a longstory that does not have any
editing that you end up doing alot of those fetch quests and a
(18:26):
lot of those unvoiced cut scenes.
It's very hard to believe.
All of it is important.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Right, so you're saying it better than me, but my
point is I know there's a lightat the end of the tunnel, but
my point is I know there's alight at the end of the tunnel,
but it's such a drag to getthere.
Yeah, the game is so boring forme right now, and the other
thing okay, so I'm gonna back itup just skip the cut scenes
(18:53):
then and get to the part whereyou can play.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Do I just space bar?
Well, there's no space bar.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
You have to skip the whole thing yeah, you skip the
whole thing, like anyconversation in a like, in a
quest.
I try to skip it as best as Ican like.
Yeah, the other side of thatyeah, I turn on your what.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
What's your go-to music playlist got in it for,
like, when you're gaming?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
but you don't need.
I never need nothing beats, ahwell, okay, but uh, but what I'm
trying to say, doc, is theother side of final fantasy 14.
That's tough.
Is that?
Like I don't care about, likeI'm gonna be a tank, I don't
care about being a dancer or amagic guy or a new job, like i't
(19:36):
care.
The game forces you to startanother job to be able to get
experience points, to be able tolevel up, because I'm
over-leveled for the contentthat I'm doing, but I'm almost
at the level of unlocking a raid, but in the story content I'm
20 levels underneath that.
So the game wants you to gobackwards and level your
(19:58):
character, start a a new job tolevel a new character, to get it
up to speed.
So you're getting experienceand you kind of stay with the
story and build.
It's not the type of player Iam.
I'm a one guy player.
Like give me a player, I cangive me a character and let me
play.
Sounds like you need to just.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You need to just buy the unlock for the story and go
straight to dawn trail okay, buthere's the problem.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Here's the problem.
A good friend of mine his nameis dr gamology also told me that
the game is going to teach mehow to do things that you can't
just skip it, because when yougo into a raid in dawn trail,
they're and they're going toexpect you to remember a
mechanic or remember somethingfrom a realm rewards raid and
you don't know Trail.
And they're going to expect youto remember a mechanic or
remember something from a RealmRewards raid and you don't know
(20:43):
it and you're wiping the group.
They're going to be like bro,didn't you do this?
No, I didn't.
You got to teach me.
We don't want to See you later.
You know what I mean.
I don't want to be that guy.
I'm going to go back to EldenRing.
You don't do it half-ass, youjust got to do it.
I'm gonna complain like a whinybitch, but I am committing to
(21:05):
be a realm reborn so I neverhave to do that dumb story again
, just like I.
If I never in my life ever haveto do the smuggler story in
star Wars, the old Republic, Iwill be thrilled.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Oh my gosh, the trooper story sucks too.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
The trooper is better than the smuggler.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
The Republic is such a waste of time.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Okay, I will.
Well, let's argue.
The Jedi story is pretty good.
You're, you're come in like youlike there's a bunch of bad
shit going on.
Some people turn on you.
You get your first lightsaber.
I don't care who you are, whenyou get your first lightsaber,
that's an awesome feeling ohsure, also the jedi knight story
(21:51):
is the hero's journey.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
They even call you the herald at the beginning,
first planet.
The Herald of change right Is apart of the monomyth structure.
That's what signals the personto receive the call to adventure
and step out and go to save thegalaxy.
Like it is, unapologeticallythe hero's story.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Can I ask you a question?
It's just more fun being a Sith, what?
What's the hero's journey?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
We don't have enough time on our recording schedule
for that, but if you areinterested, there is an award
winning book that I wrote,called the gamer's journey, that
you can purchase from the DrGameology merch store at Dr
Gameologycom, and I would lovefor all of you to get your copy
(22:44):
and to know what the hero'sjourney is.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Oh my God, that's too funny.
Oh man that that.
That was, that was made my day.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, I mean all the podcasts I listened to.
They plug their products allthe time.
I have no shame Like I PodcastsI listen to.
They plug their products allthe time.
I have no shame Like I got tosell these, otherwise there's no
point of even doing it, right.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
I want to make a t-shirt or a hat logo where half
of it is your logo and half ofit's mine, and like, yeah, like
I have some merch ideas forlater.
I think we're going to do.
We're going to do big things,but anyway, I guess for me, have
you ever played a game whereyou wanted to be into it but it
(23:29):
was really hard, but once youactually got past that threshold
like there's that invisiblethreshold, and then all of a
sudden it just clicks all thetime.
Okay, that's how I feel withfinal fantasy 14.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like, there's that invisible threshold and then all
of a sudden it just clicks Allthe time.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Okay, that's how I feel with Final Fantasy XIV.
Like I love the combat, I lovethe graphics.
I think the idea of going backinto raiding again in dungeons
or whatever they're called yeah,flashpoints, whatever, whatever
there may be called Like all ofthat, I am a true MMO player.
I love it.
But I just haven't found, Ijust haven't crossed that
(24:04):
threshold yet with Final Fantasy14.
Yeah, fair enough.
But I'm gonna circle way back towhat you said a little while
ago about streaming it.
This is a hot take.
I do not think that MMOs aregood stream games, because Nick
(24:26):
said this to me years ago hegoes.
Marcus, I love that you'repassionate about streaming, I
love that you're passionateabout rating, but can I tell you
the truth and I said sure hegoes when you're rating it just
looks like a bunch of flashydots and little people running
around.
It makes no sense to anybody whodoesn't play the game.
It's really hard for me towatch you play that and it stuck
(24:50):
with me all this time.
And it's right, cause then I'llgo into, like somebody's stream
and watch them rating orplaying it and if I don't know
that raid'm like makes no sensethis isn't content.
But when you're in expedition33 and you're playing the rock
monster which I watched happenand like all I kept going was
(25:11):
rock lobster, you know what Imean and and I would I could get
into it because the menu showedlike your attacks and like the
different spells or whatever youwere doing, and you can see and
understand that.
Hey boss, here I'm fighting theboss, right, anybody can watch
that and get into it.
(25:31):
Where, if it's an over-the-topview of you raiding and there's
this like worm wiggling its armsand then there's just flashing
lights everywhere and people arefreaking out like people are
talking about watch out for theblue dot, oh, watch out for this
it's.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
It's not, it's not easy to understand for a
non-raider or something likethat in the game yeah, I think a
lot of the reason why mychannel turned around and
started getting me places isbecause, as much as I like Final
Fantasy XIV, it's because Idecided to play Dragon Age, the
(26:09):
Veil Guard, silent Hill 2,metaphor, refantasio and
eventually found my way recentlyinto Expedition 33.
Because those games you can lookat them and understand what is
happening, you can feel theemotion, you can feel my tension
.
(26:30):
And if I'm doing a Savage raidin Final Fantasy XIV and that's
my stream content and those aremy YouTube shorts and I try to
capture the big moments.
I might have 12 seconds where Imake five really good split
second decisions, but to aperson who doesn't know that
fight, it just looks like Imoved and I didn't die and I'm
(26:52):
excited about something, butit's not clear what.
Or if those five decisions gobad and I die terribly in that
12 seconds Again, it's likeunless I make it funny, because
dying in video games is prettyhilarious If I make it funny,
that short can still work.
But if it's like if it comesdown to a random person seeing
(27:15):
Dr Gameology flash through theirswiping up and down and they're
like, oh, I don't even knowwhat I just saw, so they're
going to give me three secondsof their energy if that and move
on.
And I didn't connect withanyone because the game is too
dense.
It doesn't articulate what ishappening on screen to the
(27:36):
casual audience, right.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
And I'm with you.
We're to the casual audience,right, and I'm with you.
We're saying the same thing andit's nothing against any
creators who play and raid inMMOs.
But I connect better to acontent creator who's playing
Pokemon or Mortal Kombat orExpedition 33, or when you're
(28:00):
fighting X boss in Final FantasyVII Rebirth.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
That I can understand what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, if you compare the footage of a Final Fantasy
VII Rebirth boss fight with anMMO boss fight, even if they're
both complicated, thestory-based game is easier to
understand.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, so we're saying and this podcast episode is
kind of turning into theemotions you're playing during a
story game.
Yeah, you know, and that's mypoint here is where, like it
took me a while to get into theElden Ring or now Final Fantasy
(28:50):
14, that because I have to do it.
But I'm also want to play StarWars Jedi Survivor because I
never played it.
I also want to play Star WarsJedi Survivor because I never
played it.
I also want to play all ofthese other games.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Then don't play Final Fantasy 14, Marcus.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
No, no, no, no, no.
You're missing my point.
I'm I need to play it becauseit's that game that's lingering
in the background that I need toget to the point where you tell
me the story is good, because Ineed to see what this game can
be.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
But I've played a Realm Reborn on four different
characters for different reasons.
I like a Realm Reborn.
I think that that's the part ofthe game where it's simple
enough that you can play it andenjoy it and not feel any
anxiety going into the contentOnce you hit a certain point and
(29:51):
I don't know where this pointis, because I've only made it
there once I have one end gamecharacter.
So there's a lot of contentthat I've only done one time.
Okay, but A Realm Reborn, Ihave familiarity, muscle memory.
I start a dungeon and Iinstantly know exactly what I'm
in for.
The other stuff.
(30:12):
It's like have I done thisbefore?
And it feels new.
It's like, no, you've actuallydone this one seven times, but
it's so hard.
Final Fantasy 14 is a hard videogame and if you're a Savage
Raider listening to me, justknow I've only killed like three
Savage bosses my whole life.
That's not what I'm saying ishard.
(30:32):
I'm saying that it expects youto live that game and there is a
point with their goal of makingeach expansion harder than the
previous one and building onthat knowledge that I just feel
when I'm playing Dawn Trail andEndwalker and Shadowbringers, I
feel like I'm not the intendedaudience for that game, even
(30:55):
though I love things in thestory more than any other games
I've played.
The story is magnificent.
It's just very hard to playbecause it causes anxiety for me
In a way that Elden Ringdoesn't.
Because I'm the five-time,five-time, five-time, five-time,
(31:18):
you know, like Booker T, likeI've beaten Elden Ring and I
know what to expect, it doesn'tcause anxiety in me anymore.
Even when I'm stuck on a boss,it's like, okay, I'm going to
keep playing this until I get it.
Final Fantasy 14 makes me feelstraight up stupid, because my
friends that play it more thanme are so good at handling what
(31:41):
that game throws at you.
They just feel it, they know it, they see the markers on the
ground and they just movecorrectly.
For me, I get one shot and oneshot and one shot and getting
one shot in boss fights.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, but you're talking about Savage Raid one
shots.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I'm talking about regular story mode, marcus.
They still one shot you.
That's the mechanic of how theymake the MMO boss and MMO boss
is every boss seems to havecertain things that if you have
two damage markers on you fromdoing mechanics incorrectly, the
next thing that hits you isgoing to kill you, no matter
(32:19):
from full health or whatever.
It's hard.
It does legitimately cause meto question whether I belong in
the game.
In story mode games, it's allabout me.
It's not about the other sevenplayers and it's not about it's
(32:43):
not as much about repetitionsand memorizing specific things.
It's like your instincts cancarry you through more of the
game process than in an MMO.
Mmos you have to practice.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, I, I, I completely agree, and you know I
used to be the super socialgamer and I only was social.
But I have found myself thatI'm it's if I don't win an Elden
Ring, it's not your fault,because you didn't heal me, it's
because I didn't roll or Ididn't do the mechanic right.
(33:15):
You know what I mean?
I was in like we were watchingme do Dark souls 3.
It's the first boss and he'sannihilating me.
Why?
Because I'm rolling, like it'selden ring, not a game that's
older and the the the roll delayis bigger.
The mechanic is different.
(33:36):
Like you need to, you see, move.
You need to roll a half asecond before his arm comes all
the way down.
The mechanic is different, butit's only up to me.
But at the same time, I havethat commitment to where, like,
I have to play final fantasy 14.
I got to do it just so I canget through that and, like, go
(33:58):
to the next step, cause,honestly, I miss rating, I miss
doing that stuff in in this game.
There's rates, like in thestory content, right, and that
is exciting to me.
Yeah, there's different kindstoo, and what's one game that
you played forever ago that youplayed and you got.
(34:23):
I don't want to say the wordstuck, but got to a point where
you're like I can't play thisgame.
It's too hard, I can't get intothe story.
I just don't feel this game isconnecting with me.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
The Legend of Zelda, breath of the Wild.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Ooh, interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Tell me why?
Because it's everything aboutvideo games that I hate.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Hey, so everybody listening to the Gaming Persona?
Wasn't that an in-depth reasonfrom the doc?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Everybody give him a high five.
I don't.
I don't like open worlds.
I don't like weapons that break.
I don't like I.
I don't like questing withoutquest lists.
I don't like maps withoutobjectives.
I don't that's how I didn't.
Elden Ring has a map with thegold line on it.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
There, it is Okay yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Like Elden Ring.
I felt like I.
I have made the comparison ofbreath of the wild and Elden
Ring on this podcast before.
Maybe not with you, I know forsure I talked about previous.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
You know, yeah, that Jenny girl, yeah, yeahny girl
yeah, yeah, she's, she's amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I know I've talked with her about this elden ring
is more compelling to me yeah,elden ring is more compelling to
me as a video game and I lovezelda.
I love ocarina of time andtwilight princess so much.
Those are two of my favoritegames of all time and I, I just
I missed the structure.
I I missed link, havingdifferent items that he can use
(36:09):
to navigate through things.
I felt like all of hisinventory is generic, in breath
of the wild, like there's nohookshot and that's such a big
letdown to me, like the hookshotis essential to being link.
So there's just a lot of thingsin it where it's like this
zelda game uses the name zeldabut it wasn't made for me.
(36:32):
But I have beaten it.
There was a time two years agowhere I just was like I'm gonna
going to find a guide, I'm goingto use my phone and my other
screen on my computer orwhatever it is that I'm sitting
next to.
I'm going to turn this gameinto what I need it to be in
(36:52):
order for me to kill Beast Ganon, and I did.
I forced it to be the storythat I needed it to be by tuning
out all the open world and justcreating objectives.
Sure, and and and.
(37:13):
So I did that.
I try to do that with tears ofthe kingdom and have not
succeeded in that same way.
It's just so massive of a gameI haven't figured out how to
simplify it to where I can focusand enjoy it.
Also, I do not like buildingthings marcus so yeah, tears of
(37:33):
the kingdom is a big problem forme yeah, I can.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
I can see that I don't want to.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I won't.
I don't want to go around themap looking for five specific
types of things to build a wingvehicle that I can only use one
time.
I hate it.
Once the game introduced that,I was like oh, I think I'm done.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, and I see what you're saying because I agree.
The reason why I didn't beatBreath of the Wild is because
one, I got lost and two, I don'tlike weapons that break.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I don't like weapons that break at all.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
It's like did you ever play the Fallout games?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Again for like 45 minutes.
Yes, Thank you, yep.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
So you and I are on the same page here with that,
here with that, and I agree withyou on the complete open world,
giving you four dots of thedungeons you have to go to, but
that's it.
It did nothing for me becauseit's, uh, but the same thing
(38:36):
with elden ring, just for therecord, like I didn't do a lot
of the quests because there's no, you don't know they exist.
Or you talk to somebody andthey're talking about their
uncle's, brother's, cousin'ssister that lives next to a
church in the northwest buildingof the northwest town, in this
(39:00):
snowy world, and you're likewhere the fuck is that?
And then 70 hours later, youfind this guy leaning against
this bush in the snowy worldgoing well, you met my sister 70
hours ago.
Too bad, she died.
Fuck you Quest over, you knowwhat I mean.
It's like what and they don'tgive you any of.
(39:23):
They don't give you any of thatinformation.
It's not like there's a questlog somewhere where you can go
back, and it's almost like Iwant to go back to play the game
again and actually play it thatway you could.
There's new game plus rightjourney to continue the journey.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Play it that way you could.
There's New Game Plus RightJourney 2.
Continue the journey.
Wait, did I just end theepisode no?
Speaker 1 (39:52):
You fucked with me.
Hey, you know what I'm notgoing to?
Pax East, which is this weekend, starts today.
You know what really stinks Is?
I just found out Elden RingNight Rain has a big booth there
.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, that would have been cool.
I had someone in my Discordmessage me that they saw a cool
mental health talk and theythought of me.
I was like, yeah, I'm not atthat.
One this year Could have beenme.
And they're like, oh, you'renot here, so, nope, I'm not
there.
I had too much travel alreadythis week.
It just did not fit into mylife.
Also, the beginning of May,when you're a parent with a high
(40:27):
schooler, you have AP exams.
If you're their ride to school,it's kind of important that
you're at home.
So it's tough, but you know hecan't be in high school forever,
so Pax East will be in myfuture someday, didn't it used
to be in February?
My life was so much easier whenit was in February.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I think it was March.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
It was always in March.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, this is the latest.
It was, but I thought about it.
Okay, so real talk.
I was going to go to PAX onSunday with my son, but this
Sunday is Mother's Day weekend.
There's a zero chance I'm doingthat.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Yeah, what are they doing, but they don't care.
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Well, no, it's.
They're just, they're appealingto a different crowd.
Like it would be cool Now if mywife was a gamer.
That'd be a cool Mother's Day,yeah, you know what I mean.
Like hey, hey, let's go checkthis out, you know.
But she's not so we just nextyear, I'll go.
Next year my son will be seven,yeah, seven, and we'll go, and
(41:37):
yeah, anyway.
So the moral of my story is I'mexcited to commit to games and
I have some games that I want tocomplete, and I'm enjoying
making content again, can I?
That's so great.
(41:57):
I have a question for you,though.
That's so great.
I have a question for you,though.
Yeah, what's it like flying toSeattle for one day?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Oh my gosh, I have been paying for it all week.
Marcus, I was so jet-laggedyesterday, and when I put the
podcast up last night because Ido that on Wednesday nights I
had very little sleep going intoThursday morning, so I had to
wake up, take my son to school,sleep in.
(42:28):
I didn't wake up in time for mystream, so I did my first
meeting of the day for work, andthen I decided to stream over
my lunch break instead, so Iflip-flopped a little bit of my
time so that I could still havea stream today.
It worked out fine, got a lotof new followers, had some good
chat, but more people work whenI stream at lunchtime, so
(42:51):
sometimes the chat's reallyquiet and it feels a little bit
alone.
But I saw people there had somechannels rate into me, so it
was still nice.
Expedition 33 is kind of a hardgame, and I haven't lowered the
difficulty to story yet becauseI'm still trying to push through
normal.
But I'm also getting lost inthe maps and there's no clear
(43:15):
indicator of where I'm trying togo, so I'm running in circles a
lot, and that's frustrating me.
I just gotta get through it.
So I have a question.
The thing about seattle, though, is you lose time when you come
back east, and so dinner timedoes not feel like dinner time.
Sleep time does not feel likesleep time.
You don't need lunch anymore,and I'm trying to get back to
(43:39):
being the normal version of me.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Okay, I get that.
Let me ask you a question aboutexpedition 33.
Sure, do you watch a video, anyvideos on YouTube, to be like,
hey, like I'm lost in planet,like white shadow.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
No way.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
I don't, I'm playing it, just completely me I don't
care if I get stuck and peopleneed to leave because oh, this
loser's stuck, then they weren't, oh, they weren't meant to be
with me for this journey.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Anyway, nope, I don't mean it like that.
I I'm sorry.
I meant it as in, so you're notsuper frustrated.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I was mildly annoyed today, but I was still able to
talk through it and just be likeI ran in a circle again.
You know, just kind of likeself-deprecating humor or making
fun of yourself just making funof me in the situation you you
know, like not being mean to meand definitely not being mean to
the game.
I do think most games like thelast of us, part 2, final
(44:51):
fantasy 16 they have mechanicsin them where you can press the
right stick down and somethingwill light up that shows you the
direction you're supposed to begoing, like the camera will pan
over and give you a hint ofwhat you're supposed to be
aiming for.
I can't figure out thatExpedition 33 has that.
(45:13):
So, as a result, it's all aboutmy eyeballs noticing things and
I just don't notice the thingsI need to notice the way these
maps work and the terrains work.
Don't notice the things I needto notice the way these maps
work and the terrains work.
Yeah.
(45:33):
So I do end up spending a lot ofextra time in every map zone,
but that's good in a turn-basedgame because you're going to
level up, yeah, but I still amgetting wiped out very fast from
the enemies I'm facing.
So they have balanced the gamein a way that it is pretty
unforgiving.
I'm sure story mode this doesnot apply, but my dodge is, the
(45:54):
first half hour to hour of mystream are so bad that I just am
taking all these hits to theface and you can't you can't win
that way.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
No, I, I'm with you, you know it's.
Can you change the difficultyon the fly?
Yeah, you can move it up ordown at any time, so I almost
challenge you to when you get arunning in a circle, switch it
to story mode so you can justbreeze through and get to where
(46:24):
you're going.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yeah, I could do that .
That's how I look at it atleast Especially if there's mobs
that I've already killed two orthree times.
Every time you rest at a save,they're like flags of light.
Right, you find a save flagsave.
They're like flags of light.
Right, you find a save flag andyou, every time you rest, your
whole party gets full healthagain.
(46:48):
But the enemies respond.
It's kind of similar tomeditating in jedi fallen order
right, like everything staysdead until you save or you spend
your skill points, and then thestormtroopers you already
killed are back.
So if you, if you never saveand you don't need that full
heel, then things stay dead andyou don't have to worry about it
(47:11):
.
You can run around free.
But also I don't want to berunning around where all my
people are at like 25% health,cause that's going to mean the
next fight is going to be verytough, cause I I have to play it
perfectly.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I'm still having a lot of fun with the game, though
, Marcus.
It's an amazing game.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Well, I know you are.
I actually know you are becauseyour stream content of playing
that game is the best out of anystream content I've ever
watched of you.
Oh, really, yeah, when you'replaying Final Fantasy VII
Rebirth for the 9,000th time onthe hardest difficulty, you
(47:55):
don't have the same passionplaying that as you do this game
.
I don't know if it's becauseit's your first playthrough and
everything is new, or the gameis, so I'm gonna say the word
invigorating or exciting for youthat, like it comes out, and I
(48:18):
think a turn-based game is agreat stream game for you
because you can be comical andmethodical at the same time I
had a moment today I'm glad yousaid that I had a moment today
on stream where every turn-basedfight is essentially a puzzle.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
I choose my moves and then I hope to execute my
dodges and parries so that I canavoid damage.
And then I choose my moves.
I'm trying to strategicallymove the enemy's health bars
down to zero.
Before mine hit zero and therewas this one fight that kept
wiping me out the enemies weredoing this move where they self
(48:57):
stab and that would give themshields on their health bar that
make them so.
I can't hurt them, but I cantry to wear their shields down.
And when they self-stab topower their next attack up,
they're doing their own damageto themselves.
Right, because they're stabbingthemselves in the torso to
power themselves up, right.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
And.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
I had to do this fight about three times before I
broke through and because it'sturn-based, and I realized, oh
my gosh, I have the next twomoves and I'm down to one enemy
in this mob out of three andthey have 20% and no shield and
I have my biggest hit, Like.
So I just was able.
(49:40):
Cause it's turn-based, I don'thave to worry about anything.
I can just enjoy the moment andsay my audience like it's over,
we got it this time.
And then I press the button andthen we just see it happen.
There's no stress, it's just acelebration.
And it's a different kind offeeling than if you're in the
action based fight, because youknow that moments in front of
(50:02):
you but there's still the stressof I have to execute.
But in this it's like solving aRubik's Cube, Like you know.
Oh, I rotate this row two timesand it's over, right, and you
can just look at it and be likeyou're mine.
Yeah, it's a different feelingcompletely.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
I'll be excited once you beat expedition 33 or
whatever and you play your nextturn-based game on stream,
because I think, like man, yourcontent is so good playing a
turn-based game well, we'll see.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
I've never played the the most recent pokemon, if you
can believe that no, you got todo like octopath traveler or
something okay, okay, you got toplay a game that you like are
blind one of the things, sincewe already have mentioned final
fantasy 7 in the last fiveminutes, marcus, a lot of people
talking about Expedition 33 onpodcasts and online in the
(51:05):
circles that I listen to and getinformation from, they're
talking about something that'svery important to me as the
author of the Gamer's Journey,and that is this there are a
generation of gamers that havenot played Final Fantasy VII,
and Final Fantasy VII doesn'tmatter to them, but they will
(51:26):
play Expedition 33 because it'sso hot right now, in 2025.
Because of the story of how itwas made by ex-Ubisofters, 33 of
them decided to make this gametogether.
Right, like.
That's a powerful story abouttaking back your power and doing
(51:47):
something with it and changingthe industry.
It's doing turn-based in a waythat is not like other
turn-based games.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Marcus they revolute this game, so there's moments in
time, right, yeah, right, andI'm gonna use the iphone.
When the iPhone came out, itwas all there was was an Android
and it was clunky, and Applemade this thing that
revolutionized the world.
Same thing with an iPad, or aniPad.
(52:16):
What was the music?
Speaker 2 (52:22):
one called Like an iPod, ipod, ipod shuffle, yeah,
ipod.
What was the music one calledLike an iPod?
Ipod, ipod shuffle, yeah iPod.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
But these are moments .
Turn-based games moving forwardwill always come back to now.
Oh shit, if you're making aturn-based game right now,
you're going fuck.
We're going to have to go backto the drawing board right now.
This game is incredible.
Look what it's done.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
You know, like Pokemon on the Switch 2, right.
Eventually it's going to happenand they're playing to a
younger audience.
They don't need somethingthat's as complex as Expedition
33, but they need to look at itand figure out what's the
Pokemon version of whatExpedition 33 is doing, and
that's what we're talking about.
It's an innovation to one ofthe oldest styles of gameplay.
(53:11):
It's Final Fantasy 1, right,turn-based role-playing game,
but it's got such good style andculture.
It's a window into Frenchculture.
One of my constant supporterssince I started streaming on
Twitch actually is in France andI was talking to him on stream
(53:37):
this week.
It goes by the handle T-Lop asI pronounce it I don't know if
I'm pronouncing it right becauseyou're just reading it in the
chat, but talking with him, andhe was around when I was playing
persona 5 royal.
But now we have the culturalconnection of exposition 33
being a french rpg that's doinglike a jrpg, like japan, but
(53:58):
like what's, what's the Frenchculture inspired RPG, and this
is it, so it's unique in thatway, too.
It's.
This is, potentially, if thisgame holds and has a story that
resonates and characters thatresonate, and you have moments
in the game that can becomememes and can become those
(54:18):
mythological moments like Aerithgetting killed by Sephiroth and
I'm sure it will have momentslike that because it's so tragic
and beautiful already, likethis could be people's Final
Fantasy VII yes.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
But it changed the way games are played.
Yeah, turn-based gamesTurn-based.
You know what I mean.
Right, and this, we're gonnalook back when we're 60 and
people are still going to be or50 or 60.
And we're kids now that areplaying this game, are going to
talk about this game back in theday and somebody is going to
(54:56):
remake this game because it wasso influential now.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
That's very true.
I'm just I'm so excited becausewhen games are brand new,
historically I'm not on thebandwagon.
I show up for games way afterusually, but because I'm trying
to grow in bigger ways on Twitch, I've been bouncing around the
new games and the trendinghotness.
(55:24):
And Assassin's Creed Shadowsdid not work for me, monster
Hunter did not work for me.
I tried, but as soon as Iturned on Expedition 33, it just
grabbed me and I loved what washappening in my mind and I
(55:46):
don't always find that.
But since I did, it's like I'vebeen adding extra days to my
stream schedule.
I've been trying to figure outhow can I play this with my
community, cause I'm not playingit without my community either,
like that would ruin it becausethen I would know what's coming
, either like that would ruin itbecause then I would know
(56:07):
what's coming.
So it's just been reallyexciting to hang out with my
friends on twitch and talk aboutthe mental health topics.
And, oh my gosh, marcus, weadded a new feature to my
channel.
I want to talk to you about it.
Okay, it came from this, my d20stress ball.
I love that.
I created a new channel, pointredeem, where you can pay, and I
(56:27):
will roll this dice and I havea spreadsheet with over 50
mental health for gamers topicsand it's not prepared.
I don't know what I'm going totalk about, but but I roll it, I
show the number to the screen.
So we rolled a four.
So then I go to the spreadsheet, I put the thing above my head
(56:49):
and we've done it two times NowI put the title above my head
and then I just talk about itlike the old school mental
health moments I used to do, butwith a little bit more extra
gaming flair to it with the D 20.
And it's been so fun, like Ihave taken the highlights out on
Twitch but I haven't doneanything with them yet.
But I really need to becausethey're really fun content and
(57:10):
it's something that can justsend me into just chatting mode
for five to seven minutes andthen pop back into the game.
And it's so in line with themission of the channel.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
That's amazing.
And you make it, and you makethe channel point redemption
expensive enough to where notevery single person can redeem
it.
It's somebody that has to comeback a couple times in order to
earn it.
You know what I'm saying.
You don't want that to be ahundred point return, and then
(57:41):
you're doing it all the time.
You want it to be a hundredpoint return, and then you're
doing it all the time you wantit to be like oh snap, t-lop
just redeemed this.
We haven't done this in threedays, let's go, you know what I
mean.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
I gotta look at that because I wasn't thinking about
that, but that's a really goodpoint.
But so far we've only done oneper stream.
It's not every single stream.
Speaker 1 (57:59):
It's still special but now it's right.
No, no, I understand that.
And even if it's one everysingle stream, it's still
special.
But now it's right.
No, no, no, I understand that.
And even if it's one everystream, that's good.
But you want the, you want itto cost enough to where, if you
stream for two hours, you don'twant somebody to earn that.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
You want them to have to come back and earn it with
more points, yeah, and so thetwo topics I've done so far are
the psychology of vr gaming,which you know.
You know I love vr gaming formy exercise, it's just like the
coolest.
But I talked about vaderimmortal and I talked about the
batman simulator game and I, youknow I talked about other games
(58:36):
too, but just yeah, I love vrgaming, not not as a game, I
love it as an excuse to exercisewhile you're gaming, sure, and
then we also talked about escapeand coping as a gamer, because
you know, escape is one of thosewords that psychology
professionals use in a prettydemeaning way towards gamers.
(59:00):
And I'm not about that.
I don't, I don't take thatlightly.
I stand up for us and talkabout what escape actually is
there is no escape marcus don'tmake
Speaker 1 (59:12):
me destroy you but you don't have to destroy me.
I'm right here, you know, but Ido enjoy that you're growing in
your content creation andyou're finding your path right,
because content creation is nota sprint, it's a marathon.
(59:37):
Oh yeah, you know what I meanand you have to find your and
you're going to realize likesome things work, some things
don't.
And that I love that stressball channel redemption, because
you it forces you to have amental health moment when you're
least expecting it.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
Right yeah, it's really cool too, cause the
audience gets to control that.
Right, yeah, we also have the.
We also have the conversationcards from geek therapeutics
that I can use.
We also could do the old schoolmental health moment kind of
format I.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
I like this because it it's forcing you to do
something that you don't.
You don't know what's comingand it's forcing you to do
something that you don't.
You don't know what's comingand it's giving somebody and you
don't know, and they don't know.
And it's pretty rad when youget to talk about something
you're not expecting, cause ifyou're thinking about a mental
health moment, you're going tobe like, oh, I'm going to be,
(01:00:36):
I'm going to talk about X.
And you're going to think aboutthat for days where, if you're
just pulling up a random cementsheet, you're like, oh snap, I
wasn't expecting this, let's go.
And it puts you in it and itproves to your community that
you're really good at what youdo.
Because random topic comes upand you're like, oh snap, I got
(01:00:58):
this, no problem, let's go.
Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Yeah, I don't think about my topics for days at all,
ever anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
it's all improv well, so those are the things that
you keep to yourself, so yourcommunity doesn't know that.
But hey, whatever, you knowwhat I mean.
Nobody's, just us yeah, that'strue.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
No, everybody I.
I really do think that thereason I talk about things the
way I do is because I wishsometimes I was a comedian.
But it works.
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Well, wait wait 2025 doc is way more of a comedian
than 2019 doc.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Okay, what were you going tosay?
I was just going to ask youwhat's something you wish you
had become, but you never did.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Like me and comedy.
What is something that I wish Ibecame that I never did A
professional paintball playerplayer that's interesting
because I know, before I figuredout, what psychology was.
Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
I wanted to be either an nba player or an astronaut,
and I was age 10, so let's seehow we all see how that worked
out.
But you know what, if you havea, a call to adventure and you
need to be the hero of yourstory, go after it, because
sometimes there are going to bethings inside you that stay
alive, no matter how old you get, and you can always find ways
(01:02:31):
to use them and then, as always,continue the journey.
Thank you.
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